


somewhere deep within you a beast shouting

by Vorpal_Sword



Series: the soft animal of your body [10]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemon Settling, Episode: s04e06 The Carnival Job, Gen, Kidnapping, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:33:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28064757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vorpal_Sword/pseuds/Vorpal_Sword
Summary: Molly Connell and her daemon were kidnapped by their own housekeeper, held ransom for their father's crime.This is the aftermath.
Series: the soft animal of your body [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1483046
Comments: 18
Kudos: 85





	somewhere deep within you a beast shouting

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back! I took a break from fanfic to do NaNoWriMo. I still have lots more work to do on my novel, but I miss the fanfic community, and this one has been bouncing around in my head for ages. 
> 
> Warnings for canonical child endangerment and trauma. More detailed warnings in the end notes. 
> 
> Title from Morning Poem by Mary Oliver:  
> And if your spirit  
> carries within it
> 
> the thorn  
> that is heavier than lead--  
> if it's all you can do  
> to keep on trudging--
> 
> there is still  
> somewhere deep within you  
> a beast shouting that the earth  
> is exactly what it wanted--

For a solid month after her kidnapping and subsequent rescue by a gang of talented criminals, Molly Connell’s daemon stays in the form of the little brown bat he’d taken when Eliot told them to listen, listen harder than they ever had before. 

They’d been terrified, clinging to each other, when Gus remembered the ear bud Eliot had given them. Eliot had told them the truth— this was real, this was dangerous, this was as bad as their imagination had suggested— and the way he promised to come for them almost made them believe that was the truth, too. 

And then Eliot had given them a task. _Listen._ Gus had shifted into bat shape, reporting every sound back to the security guy, and for the first time since they’d been grabbed, Molly had been able to breathe. 

More than anything, Molly hates feeling helpless. With Gus’s strong ears, at least there was something they could _contribute_ , do something other than sitting like a helpless damsel awaiting rescue. She could give Eliot the information he needed to find them. 

The day had a happy ending, Molly reunited with her desperate, tearful father, the bad guys arrested, whatever the hell the team had been after in the first place returned to its inventor. 

But for Molly and Gus, that wasn’t the end of it. 

It’s hard to go back to the house where Daria had worked. It might have been easier if it had really been strangers who’d grabbed her, but it was Daria, who’d fed her chicken soup and nagged her to clean up her room. How can she feel secure, after that?

But Gus nuzzles at her cheek with his soft furry face and promises her she won’t ever be alone, and he will not ever let anyone sneak up on them again.

And so Gus stays as that sharp-eared bat, alerting his human to every tiny movement around them, until one of the awkward family dinners Dad has insisted on to “repair their relationship” or “really be a family again” or some other fluff like that. 

Dad clears his throat and says, “Honey, you’d, uh, you’d tell me if Augustus had settled, right?” 

Emilia, Dad’s beaver daemon, barks a laugh. In answer, Gus shifts into a blue jay, maintaining his perch on Molly’s shoulder. 

“Oh, thank God,” Dad breathes out. Molly stiffens while Gus shifts back into the bat form, glaring at their father. Emilia whacks her human with her broad tail, and Dad hastens to add, “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” He pokes at his overcooked pasta with a fork, grimacing as it falls apart. 

“How did you mean it, then?” Molly asks, unimpressed.

He sighs, putting down his fork and trying to make eye contact with his daughter. He can’t maintain it for more than a few seconds, of course, but Molly supposes the effort might count for something. Maybe. 

“Sometimes,” he begins carefully, “when a person your age, whose daemon hasn’t settled yet, goes through a traumatic experience, it can trigger settling.” He glances over at Gus, who twitches his furry wings. “I don’t have any objections to that form. I won’t have any objections to _any_ form you take, because that’s you are,” he amends, probably in response to a more subtle nudge from Emilia. “I just… whenever you settle, I want it to be because it’s the right time for you, not because you were hurt. Does that make sense?”

Molly opens her mouth to make a snarky comment, but Gus flicks her ear with one soft wing before she can speak and she closes her mouth again. She lifts her daemon off her shoulder and cradles him in her hands. His fur is soft, so soft, like the velvet jacket her mother used to wear. She imagines if Gus had settled in that moment, if he’d huddled against her neck listening for carnival sounds, desperate to do something useful to save them, if his first moment in his true shape had been one of terror. And she remembers again that she was not the only one traumatized by the whole thing.

“Well,” she says, “we’re not settled, so that’s enough of that. Fired any geniuses lately?” And then he is too busy spluttering a response to continue talking about anything serious. She knows he is not-so-secretly relieved about the topic change, too. Neither of them is any good at talking about anything real. 

On the other hand, there are people who talk about real things professionally. Molly’s Dad may have historically alternated between being massively overprotective and mildly neglectful, but after his daughter’s kidnapping, he manages to do the right thing and get them both into therapy. 

“Yes, trauma can frequently trigger early settling in someone of your age,” the therapist confirms when Molly asks. “It’s also not uncommon for it to _delay_ settling, as a person’s sense of self is disrupted.”

That makes sense to Molly, who has felt like she had just gotten off too many rounds on the spider ride for the last five weeks. “But why would it trigger early settling?” she asks. 

The therapist hesitates. “First you have to understand that daemonology is not an exact science.” She offers a rueful smile. “Rather like psychology. We have a sense of patterns, and we can see _what_ happens, but we don’t always understand _why_ it happens, and it’s not predictive. For all of history, people have had explanations about why daemons settle when they do and what they settle as, and we have pretty good guesses for some of that, but we just don’t know for sure.”

“Okay, but what are some guesses?”

“One common theory is that trauma is like a forge or a crucible, putting you in intense pressure that shapes who you are. Frankly, I think that’s bogus. Trauma is a thing that happens to you, and it becomes part of you, but it’s not the core essence of your being, as your daemon is.” 

Molly nods. It’s similar to things they’ve discussed in therapy before. Gus says, “Our experience influences us, but it doesn’t _define_ us.”

The therapist beams. “Exactly,” she agrees. She pauses to see if Molly has anything to add before continuing with her explanation. “So, others suggest that trauma is _clarifying_ , that it exposes or reveals one’s deepest self. In that theory, settling might come early, but _form_ wouldn’t be affected, it’s what children would have settled as anyway. Detractors of that theory point out that in the overwhelming majority of documented cases of settling during a traumatic incident, the settled form is one that helps the pair survive— an aquatic animal in a near drowning, for example.” 

“Or a sharp-eared animal in a kidnapping?” Molly fills in. 

The therapist nods compassionately. “Just so.” 

Gus is bat-shaped, still, clinging to her shirt. It wouldn’t be terrible to be a bat forever, but for now, she is grateful he can still shift. What if next time, it’s sight or ability to fight that would save them, rather than hearing? 

“I hate that I’m constantly thinking strategically about things now,” she says. “But also I’m sorta glad that I do?” 

“In what ways?” 

Molly shrugs. Gus says, “It used to just be fun to think about what I’d settle as and try new things, but now every time I think about shifting, it’s about what _advantages_ a new form will get me, and then I stay in this one because I want these advantages.” 

“I miss that fun,” Molly continues, “but old-me seems super naïve, and I don’t want to go back to not _having_ those advantages. I look for exits now, you know? Every time I go into a room, I look at all the ways out of it. And that’s not _fun_ , but the option is not knowing where the exits are, and I can’t bear to not know.” 

“That’s a very normal response,” the therapist assures her. “You’re looking for ways to exert control over your world after control was taken from you.”

Molly snorts. “Is that why Dad went nuts with the security stuff after Mom died?” 

“Very probably. There are more and less healthy ways to find that control, of course. Would you like to discuss healthy strategies for finding control?”

Molly draws a complete blank. After a long moment, the therapist says, “What if we phrase the question differently? What makes you feel safe?”

That one has an easy answer. _Safety,_ to Molly, looks and feels like Eliot Spencer. 

To Molly’s surprise, Dad agrees to self-defense lessons immediately. She expected him to insist that between the bodyguards, the safe room, and the surveillance she’s not supposed to know about, it wouldn’t be necessary, but instead he’s thrilled that she’s taking his fears seriously.

It does, however, require more persuasion to convince him to sign her up for lessons at a local judo studio, rather than hiring some fancy-pants military trainer to give her private lessons. He insists on doing questionably legal background checks on all the staff, but eventually concedes when Molly’s therapist tells him that it’s important for her to have social contact with peers.

In this, at least, her therapist was entirely correct. She quickly gains a reputation for having a judo-like wit, turning her opponent’s comments against him, and she learns to only use it against people who attack her or someone else first. For the first time since her mother died, Molly feels like she has friends. 

It’s also at judo lessons that Gus begins experimenting with other forms. A bat hanging on her neck throws off her balance, a bit, and the bright lights of the studio confuse his sensitive night-adjusted eyes. At first, he only switches for a couple minutes at a time, while Molly is sparring, but slowly he becomes more comfortable with other forms. There’s a couple different dogs he returns to, ears not quite as sharp as the bat’s but better eyesight making up for it. He tries a sharp-clawed puma, ready to pounce, eyes flickering across every exit and at every other daemon. He tries an owl, clacking his vicious beak by Molly’s ear, ready to attack. He even tries a wolf, like Eliot’s muscled silver companion, though never for very long. 

Slowly, Molly’s muscles grow alongside her fragile confidence. She begins to feel more secure, starts to cautiously confide in her father once in a while. She still checks the exits every time she enters a room, but she no longer flinches at Russian accents. 

“I’m kinda annoyed that this all worked,” she tells her therapist one day. “It’s like the carnival games, you know? In some ways, it was easier when I thought it was all a scam and everything sucked and it wouldn’t get better, since then there was no point in trying.” 

Her therapist grins at her. “And in other ways?” she prompts. 

Molly scrunches up her face in an exaggerated scowl. “In other ways, it’s a million times better than I thought it would be,” she admits. “I thought ‘it gets better’ was a lie adults tell teens to keep us alive or whatever but it turns out it actually did. _So_ irritating.” 

The therapist’s smile softens. “I’m glad, Molly,” she says. 

Molly, despite herself, smiles back. “Yeah,” she says. “Me too.” 

A little over two years after what she has taken to thinking of as The Carnival Thing, an older boy catcalls Molly on the street. When she ignores him, he comes up behind her. Gus shifts into a larger animal, a canine of some kind, to serve the dual purpose of intimidation and attempting to shame this guy for hitting on a girl who hasn’t even settled yet, though neither Gus nor Molly really believes a guy who uses that kind of language in the street is going to be shamed. 

Sure enough, the boy keeps walking towards them. Molly, attuned to Gus’s senses, knows exactly where he is, and isn’t caught off guard when he grabs for her shoulder. 

“Hey, I was talking to you—” he begins, and Molly _moves._ The moment that hand touches her body, she twists, grabs his wrist, and uses his weight against him, the way she’s practiced in judo class dozens of times. 

In seconds, he’s on the ground blinking up at her in confusion, his duck daemon quacking and flapping by his head. 

“Don’t touch me,” Molly orders. “It’s gross and weird to grab at girls like that. Do better.” 

There’s a triumphant howl next to her. Molly kicks the jerk one more time for good measure, then strolls off with her daemon at her side. 

Gus’s ears flick. Molly says, “Too little, too late,” without looking, though now she can also hear the rapid footsteps behind her.

“Sorry, ma’am,” says the security dude. He’s no Eliot. But this time, she didn’t need an Eliot. She had herself.

She grins down at Gus. He grins back, a certain smugness around his muzzle. The moment her hand brushes his fur, she knows. 

“We settled?” she gasps, going to her knees next to him. 

Gus stretches out, muscles rippling under his tan fur. “Looks like,” he says. 

He’s smaller than Eliot’s daemon or some larger dogs she’s seen, but still on the large side for a daemon. His back is dappled in black and dark grey, his legs and face are a sandy brown with some flecks of red, and his stomach is so pale it’s nearly but not quite white. 

“Are you a wolf?” she asks. She’s quite certain he’s not a _tame_ dog. 

“I think so?” he says. “I’m not actually sure.” 

There’s a polite cough next to them. Molly and her daemon both turn to glare at the security guy, who raises his hands in surrender. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take you to the library to be sure, of course, but I think he’s a coyote.”

“A coyote,” Molly breathes, turning back to her beautiful daemon. She likes the sound of that. 

“My hearing is excellent,” Gus informs her. “My vision, too.” He wrinkles his nose. "And I can smell _everything._ "

“Everything about you is excellent,” Molly says. Gus flexes at that, and his tail wags once, almost like a dog. 

She glances back to where her assailant has struggled to his feet and is limping as fast as he can in the other direction. She laughs. “You know, Gus,” she says, “we’re not just going to be fine, we’re going to be _amazing._ ” 

“Bring it on,” the coyote says.

Molly Connell rises to her feet, sinks her hand into the ruff at her daemon’s neck, and stares unflinchingly into the future. 

She is going to be a legend.

* * *

  
_A/N: Outtake starring the team, from the beginning of the episode, because I thought of it and then couldn't resist sharing it even though it doesn't fit with the rest of the narrative:_

Sophie looks thoughtfully at the video of their mark on the screen. Mel whistles. “That’s not greed we’re looking at,” Sophie says. “It’s grief.” 

Boudicca and Leia both shift uncomfortably. “I thought we were supposed to hate the guys we take down,” Eliot says. Alec silently agrees, reaching up to pet Leia's tail. 

“Not a requirement,” Nate says. “A perk, usually.” Brigid barks. 

“Still,” Parker says, wrinkling her nose at the screen. “A beaver? That’s like, busy hard worker dude, not so evil.” She curls up her lip and sticks her teeth out, mimicking a beaver gnawing on a piece of wood. It’s adorable. 

“Woah,” Eliot says, suddenly serious. “Do you know why beavers have orange teeth? It’s not 'cause they drink too much orange soda! They’ve got actual  _ iron  _ in those teeth. I’m telling you, do  _ not _ underestimate beavers. They have a nasty bite. And that tail is no weak club, either.” 

“Eliot,” Alec says, unable to keep a note of glee out of his tone. “Are you telling us you lost a fight with some beavers?”

“I don’t lose fights!” Eliot snaps. “I’m just saying, this guy may not be quite as slimy as our usual marks, but that doesn't mean he ain't dangerous.” He tosses Alec a look the hacker has no idea how to interpret and adds, "I don't underestimate raccoons, either." 

Nate clears his throat. “Right. Well. Noted.” He gestures and Alec brings up the blueprints of the house. “We won't underestimate Connell. We’re here to get Geoffrey’s chip back.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: Molly reflects on her experience being kidnapped with her dad and therapist. They discuss other forms of trauma, and some of the effects that it has had on her world-- among other things, she always checks for exits, and she's slower to trust. At the end, she experiences non-explicit street harassment, and defends herself. 
> 
> Daemons in this story:  
> Molly-- Augustus (Gus), an Eastern Coyote. A close relative of the wolf, coyotes are native to North America. They can be highly social but are less dependent on social groups than wolves. They're pretty adaptable, with a diverse diet and wide range.  
> John Connell-- Emilia, a Beaver. Beavers are monogamous with strong family groups. They build complex dens and dams in their river homes, and they are highly territorial and protective of their families. As Eliot describes, they have extremely strong teeth and a vicious bite.  
> Ducks are sexually aggressive jerks.


End file.
